I Want to Take Ten

Sakura clenched the bells and took a step forward.

"Sasuke-kun, I know you think we need these two bells more."

"But if you're not here, what's the point of becoming ninjas?"

She took a deep breath, lifted her head, and looked Sasuke straight in the eyes.

"We trained together out there for three years. If one of us gets eliminated, then even if the other two pass, it doesn't count as passing."

Naruto raised his right hand and held the bell out in front of Sasuke.

"Sasuke, the Hokage protects the village. He protects his comrades."

"If I can't even advance together with you, then what kind of Hokage would I be?"

His voice echoed across the training ground.

"If you stop being a ninja, then I'll stop too."

"If you go find Jiraiya, I'll go with you. If you stay in the village, I'll camp outside your house every day. Wherever you go, I'll follow."

"All right, all right." Kakashi clapped his hands, drawing their attention back to him.

"Even if the process was almost entirely wrong..."

His visible right eye curved into a smile.

"The result was right."

Naruto was still pointing at Sasuke. At Kakashi's words, his finger froze in midair, and he looked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" Kakashi held up three fingers. "All three of you pass."

Sakura froze.

She looked down at the bell in her hand, then back at Kakashi.

Naruto's brows knitted together. He slowly lowered his hand, then scratched hard at his temple twice.

"But there are only two bells. And Sasuke..."

"The bell test was never meant to eliminate anyone." Kakashi lowered his hand, his tone turning serious.

"On ninja missions, sometimes you'll have to choose between the rules and your comrades. If you choose the rules, then you're a good ninja who completed the mission."

He paused.

"But if you choose the rules and abandon your comrades..."

Kakashi's visible right eye shifted from Sasuke to Naruto and Sakura.

"Then you're the lowest scum there is."

"What? So Kakashi-sensei isn't a bad guy after all?"

Naruto's mouth hung open. The anxiety and anger on his face faded away, replaced by pure excitement.

He spun around and grabbed Sasuke by the shoulders.

"Sasuke! Did you hear that? We all passed!"

Sasuke staggered back as Naruto shook him, then slapped his hands away.

"I heard."

"Then why aren't you even a little happy? You scared me half to death just now, you know!"

"What are you scared of? I was stating a fact."

"What fact? You were just trying to scare us!"

Naruto jabbed Sasuke in the shoulder, adding another accusation with each poke.

"You just wanted to see how we'd react, right? You're so smart, you must've known Kakashi-sensei would let us pass!"

Sasuke's mouth twitched.

"I didn't know. I just thought you needed those two bells more than I did."

Naruto's jabbing hand suddenly stopped.

Sakura covered her mouth. Her shoulders shook twice, and at last, tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Sasuke-kun... how did I never realize you were this awkward before?" Sakura wiped the tears from the corner of her eye.

Naruto snorted, folded his hands behind his head, and turned his face away.

"Exactly. If you're worried about us, just say so. You went the long way around and nearly scared me to death."

Sasuke slid his hands back into his pockets and gazed at the sky, where a few clouds drifted in the distance.

"I was just stating a fact."

"Yeah, yeah. Stating a fact." Naruto drawled, then whipped his head around, flashing all his teeth.

"Anyway, we all passed!"

White Dog crouched beside Sasuke's feet, thumping his tail against the ground twice.

"The yellow-haired runt cried, didn't he?"

"Who cried? That was sweat! Sweat from fighting just now!"

Black Dog came over beside Naruto and said, "Yeah, he's still just as stubborn."

"Black! What are you talking about?"

Escaping Rabbit lay beside Kakashi's feet and looked up at him.

"Sensei, I want a bell too."

Kakashi looked at Escaping Rabbit in confusion.

"Hm? You're a summon. You don't need a bell to become a Genin."

"Oh." Escaping Rabbit blinked. "Then I guess I'm pretty amazing."

"...In a way, you really are." Kakashi was at a loss for words.

"All right, since you've all passed..." Kakashi straightened his Forehead Protector and turned to leave.

"Let's report to Lord Hokage, then pick up a mission. You've got half a day left to experience the life of a ninja."

Naruto casually stuffed the bell into his pocket and sprinted after him.

"A mission! It's going to be something awesome, right? Like rescuing a neighboring country's princess from a castle! Or defeating some super-dangerous rogue ninja!"

"No. Newly graduated Genin can only take D-rank missions, like pulling weeds or finding cats."

"Whaaaat?!"

Naruto's anguished wail echoed above the training ground.

The corridor of the Hokage Building smelled faintly of ink and old wood.

Sunlight filtered through the awnings outside the windows, breaking into neat squares that fell on Kakashi's hand as he pushed open the Hokage's office door.

"Third Hokage, I'm here to report the results of Team 7's test."

Mitaraishi Anko stood in front of the desk, holding half a skewer of Three-Color Dango as she reported something to Hiruzen Sarutobi.

At the sound of the door, she turned her head out of habit. Her chewing stopped, and her eyes flew wide open.

"Oh! Isn't that Sasuke?"

Anko set the rest of her skewer on the Third Hokage's desk and crossed the room in three quick strides.

She bent down and pinched Sasuke's cheeks with both hands, pulling them outward.

"You've gotten so tall! Let your teacher have a look—there's no baby fat left on your face! You were so cute with those chubby cheeks when you were little. Have you been training too hard?"

Sasuke's face was pulled into an odd shape.

He raised a hand and slapped Anko's palm away, then rubbed his reddened cheeks.

"Could you stop acting like you're my big sister, Teacher Mitarashi?"

"What are you talking about? Don't I count as your big sister?" Anko planted her hands on her hips, her grin growing even wider.

"Who brought you dango when you were little? Who practiced shuriken with you?"

"That was just a transaction."

Anko reached out and ruffled Sasuke's head, messing up his hair.

"You're just too awkward. I can tell you really like your teacher!"

Naruto pointed at Anko's hand tousling Sasuke's hair, his eyes wide.

"Sasuke! Why does Red Bean-sensei get to touch you?"

"Last time I sparred with you, I tried to ruffle your hair, and you nearly stabbed through my hand with a Kunai."

"Your hand was just too dirty." Sasuke took Anko's hand off his head and walked over to the Third Hokage's desk.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took his pipe out of his mouth and tapped it twice against the ashtray. His aged face creased into several folds as he smiled.

He looked at the three standing side by side and nodded.

"You all passed. Kakashi's test is famous throughout Konoha for its high failure rate."

"Lord Hokage already knew the result?" Kakashi leaned against the doorframe, his tone lazy. "I was planning to report how it went."

"I don't need a report to know." Hiruzen put his pipe back in his mouth. Smoke drifted from his lips, blurring the wrinkles on his face.

"I always thought these three would pass together."

Sakura clasped the bell in her hands. At his words, her eyes grew misty again.

Naruto slung an arm around Sasuke and Sakura's shoulders and flashed a toothy grin as he gave the Third Hokage a thumbs-up.

"Of course! The three of us are the strongest!"

Naruto's arm squeezed Sasuke's shoulder painfully. Sasuke glanced at Naruto's face, so close to his own, hesitated, and didn't pull away.

"Ahem." Hiruzen cleared his throat and pushed the mission scrolls on the desk toward the family crest, turning his attention away from the three.

"Then relax a little. From today on, you're ninjas who can stand on your own. You don't need to be so formal. Let's start with some missions, Anko."

"Oh! So, we're picking missions?" Anko picked up a stack of scrolls from a wooden rack beside the Third Hokage's desk and dumped them all onto it with a clatter.

The sealing wax on the scrolls was pale yellow. They were all beginner-level missions.

She casually opened the top one and scanned its contents.

"Hmm—this one's good!"

"The client is a farmer named Lewis. He says some farmers showed up at a farm called Stardew Valley..."

"But those guys don't take care of the farm. They're either mining or fishing, and the grass has grown taller than he is. He needs ninjas to help clear the weeds."

The smile on Naruto's face visibly collapsed.

"Weeding?"

"Next one." Anko opened another scroll.

"The client is a shipwright named Franky."

"He says his friend Luffy ran his ship onto a reef near a deserted island. There's a big hole in the hull, and he needs ninjas to help salvage materials for repairs."

"Fixing a ship?!" Naruto's mouth drooped all the way to his chin.

"Next. The client is Two Hundred Fifty-Six, a blacksmith. He needs help clearing slimes out of his smithy."

"What even is a slime—"

Before Naruto could finish asking, Anko opened four or five more scrolls and laid them out in a row across the desk.

"Catching fish thieves by the river, helping an old woman find her lost cat, cleaning out the sewers..."

What kind of missions were these?

Naruto slammed both hands on the desk. "These missions are total garbage!"

He pointed at the pile of scrolls with pale yellow sealing wax, his face nearly pressed against Anko's.

"I want an awesome mission! The kind where we rush out of the village, smash a rogue ninja into the ground, and then get cheered by the whole village at sunset!"

"A ninja's dream from a storybook." Hiruzen set his pipe against the edge of the ashtray and folded his hands beneath his chin.

"But Naruto, that's what D-rank missions are like. The village has plenty of little chores that need doing every day, and someone has to do them."

"Don't rush. Keep at it. Do enough D-rank missions, and you'll get there."

Sasuke had been staring at Hiruzen the whole time. He waited until the old man finished speaking before he spoke up.

"Actually..."

Hiruzen raised his eyelids.

"I also want to take higher-ranked missions sooner." Sasuke took his hands out of his pockets.

"Can we take more D-rank missions?"

Hiruzen's fingers, which held the pipe, stopped in midair.

He looked from the pile of scrolls on the desk to Sasuke's expressionless face, his brow furrowing slightly.

"In theory, yes. But you've only just graduated. At most, you can take—"

"I want to take ten."

The pipe nearly slipped from Hiruzen's mouth. Anko put down the scroll in her hand, braced both hands on the desk, and leaned forward. Her eyes curved into a smile as she looked Sasuke up and down.

"Oh my, Sasuke-kun, are you sure? Ten D-rank missions would take several days, even if each one only took half a day. If you don't do them well, it could really damage the village's reputation."

Anko pulled another dango skewer from the paper bag on the desk, bit off one, and added indistinctly, "I know you're strong, but D-rank missions may not be difficult, yet they take a lot of time."

"I have Escaping Rabbit."

Anko stopped chewing.

"Oh? I see."

Sasuke took the stack of scrolls from Anko's hands.

Ten D-rank missions sealed with pale yellow wax were only about two fingers thick when stacked together.

"Escaping Rabbit."

The shadow beneath Sasuke's feet rippled, and a white rabbit sprang out of the black mud, shaking its ears.

"Make two hundred clones. Split into ten groups of twenty, and send each group to one of the ten mission locations."

Sasuke opened the scrolls one by one so Escaping Rabbit could see the addresses and mission details.

"Did you memorize them?"

Escaping Rabbit blinked. "I've got them. If I don't have enough clones, can I make more?"

"That's enough." Sasuke rolled up the scrolls and handed them to Anko. "Go."

Escaping Rabbit bounced in place, and twenty white rabbits split off from it at once. Then there were forty, then eighty.

Rabbits streamed out from the Hokage's office. A few jumped straight down from the windowsill.

Anko stared blankly at the huge crowd of rabbits.

"You... finished the mission just like that?"

"Yeah. Each group of clones has a number, and once the mission's complete, they'll bring back a report. If you need to confirm it, you can send a Chunin to check."

Hiruzen took the pipe from his mouth and looked at the pile of scrolls on his desk, then at the few rabbits jumping out the window. The wrinkles on his face shifted.

In the end, he put the pipe back in his mouth and blew out a long stream of smoke.

"That's very efficient, Sasuke. But now the three of you won't have much to do for the next couple of days."

"Having nothing to do is perfect!" Naruto grabbed Sasuke by the sleeve. "Let's go eat ramen! We're celebrating Team 7's formation!"

"Naruto, we haven't finished the mission—" Sakura started to say, but Naruto dragged her outside before she could finish.

Kakashi watched Naruto pull Sasuke and Sakura away, then waved.

"Well, I'll go with them, then. I won't keep you."

Then he followed the three of them out of the office.

The door closed.

The office fell silent. Anko took the last bite of the dango in her hand, tossed the skewer into a paper bag, and braced both hands against the edge of the desk.

"Lord Hokage, besides the recent signs of unrest in the Land of Rain, there's something else I need to report."

"Go ahead."

"It's about a bridge builder from the Land of Waves, an old man named Tazuna."

"The Land of Waves." Hiruzen pondered for a moment. "Is the bridge builder constructing a bridge to connect it to the mainland?"

Anko's tone grew more casual as she spoke.

"Ever since he arrived in Konoha, he's been pretending to be senile to mooch food and drink. I think something's wrong."

Hiruzen's brow furrowed slightly.

"So you think he's pretending to be pitiful?"

"Definitely."

Hiruzen fell silent for a while.

He picked up his pipe from beside the ashtray and rolled it halfway around between his fingers.

"Send two Anbu to investigate the area around the Land of Waves."

He exhaled a puff of smoke.

"By the way, Anko, Danzo's been unusually quiet lately. Keep an eye on him when you have time."

"Understood."